Articles in the February 2016 Category

When ‘teachers’ are the focus of attention in a mainstream Hindi film, it is time to celebrate even though some of the characters in the film are stereotypes. ‘Chalk and Duster’ is a simple film with a simple story but makes teachers feel good about being in the profession.

Sameera Sood
What is play? Why is it important for children and how is it different from work? Children love to play and explore their environment. It helps them develop intellectual and social skills. It is different form work in the sense that play is something one chooses to do while work is something one has to perforce do. Since play is the basis of language and cognitive development, teachers must ensure that children get adequate opportunities to play in school.

Two separate events and some enthusiastic children set the stage for a rollicking evening of fun. At the kids fair where Teacher Plus participated, Manaswini Sridhar and Deepa Kiran, resource persons, engaged the children in a story writing and story telling session. Both the sessions saw children in an upbeat mood as they enjoyed writing and listening to the stories. Some of the prize-winning stories are featured here.

If you are interested in teaching English to underprivileged children or if you know someone who is not a teacher but would still like to volunteer, here is an organisation that can support you. Step up India , a Bangalore- based NGO enables skilled volunteers, not trained as teachers, to teach English in government schools in Karnataka. The programme and methodology is so designed that any volunteer can implement it at any point.

Manaswini Sridhar
Most students find history a boring subject to deal with because they are required to remember dates, when battles were fought, who was the victor or the vanquished and so on. But, if teachers could organise simple games to make this process easy for children, then history would certainly come alive. How about a game like Bingo? Try it out and find your students all fired up to answer your questions on historical dates!

How can the dominant view of a classroom be changed to recognise its worth as a valuable resource for learning of teachers and teacher educators? Classrooms need to be viewed not just as spaces for ‘practice’ but as a resource enabling learning. Both teacher educators and classroom teachers can nurture each others’ learning experiences by changing the way classrooms can be used.

Avinash Kumar
The second part of this article explains how different perspectives towards a historical event can help students to understand the past, and develop their own explanation of the historical issue.

Geetha Durairajan
Can inclusive education , that is much talked about today, also include people from other communities and gender and not just people with disabilities? Can we teach our children to recognise that barriers are created by people, and that in actuality, though people are different, they are also the same?

Aditi Mathur and Ratnesh Mathur
How can schools create an environment where children lead their own learning? Here are eight steps that teachers can adapt in their own spaces to create learning leaders.